The familiar sound of horse's hooves and the cart wheel spin against the hard narrow road accompanied the chatting between the only two passenger of the cart who sit on the front seat.
One is a boy with brown haired, violet eyed, wearing short sleeve white shirt and brown long pants. The other is is a bob style red haired older girl with simple long dress and black cloak. On the middle between them is a package of sandwiches in a rattan bag which is eaten by the girl and bottle of water.
After finished her meal, the girl start on her explanation.
"So- the necklace have 3 functions- one is for magic call, you only need utter name and imagine the person you want to call face's. as long as the other party have another communication magic device, they can send reply to you" The bubbly girl instruct the boy as she held the purple amethyst pendant.
"I don't want to call you tho-"
"Rude- anyway its not only can be used for calling, you know-" the older girl huffed.
"is that so?" harold reply disinterestly, as he focus his attention on handling the cart.
A twitch of irritation pop out on mary's head.
'Be patient- this hillbillies will be grateful later on-' the girl arrogantly thought while trying to calm her enraged mind.
Harold snorted inside his mind. the girl is too obvious- did she think he is dumb-
"Well, do you want to know or not???" the girl asking back
"Just say it already, if its cursed necklace i'll just ditch it somewhere" Harold reply snidely. 'more like pawn it out to some merchants for some extra money, tho she didn't need to know that.' he thought contemplatively.
"Fine- u better be grateful- the other 2 function is Mana storage and Basic Barrier spell" Mary explained.
"Ah, cool" Harold hummed. the light in his eyes flashes in interest before gone back to the usual lazy eyes.
Mary stare at the boy incredulously "Thats it? No other reactions? its a high grade artifact you know-"
"Don't make me laugh" Harold cold responses startled the girl. "you wouldn't easily give it off if its really is important" he jabbed.
"You-"
The girl sentence stopped as Harold motioned his cart carefully entering the village.
"Its really is a standard rural village-" the girl murmured as she curiously look around.
"About the neklace- how many amount of mana it can storedbl in and will the barrier hold on against wild beasts?" Harold interrupted suddenly as he lead his cart on west gate where the girl say where her companions are.
"Now you're interested?" Mary raise her eyebrow.
"Nah, just making sure its not going blow off on me or worse, fake product-"
"How dare you accusing me of scamming- I would never wear fake products-" the girl reply indignantly. Harold just rolled his eyes. bruh, in modern time you can see lots imitation products, who said these peoples of this realm can't do the same-
"The mana stored can only amount to 200 point. its can be used to powering up one E lvl spell and maintain barrier. The barrier can only witshand one time level D attack a day. beside that nope. you better take care of this necklace good" The girl added as she place the necklace on harold's bag.
Harold look thoughtfully.
'basically its just low mid grade artifact' thats the conclusion he arrived at. the restriction of this artifact is suffocating. one time and its done for- its defo wasteful in situation if he is pushed to continously fight back.
'its better than nothing-' he nodded
"Thank you for the gift" he added sincerely, mary snap and looking at harold with shocked face.
"I- thats unfair! whats with this sneak attack-" the girl complained as she start crowed on how naughty this little brother is.
Harold being efficient fellow as he is conveniently tune out and ignore the wailing girl.
When the cart arrive on the west gate, where the village's official gateway to the capital, Harold noticed a plain brown carriage on the side road.
The brown haired muscled middle aged man stand beside the carriage, wearing a sleveless black cloak. a sword in its sheath strapped on the guy's waist belt.
"Uncle Jared~"
Mary calling out to such warrior looking man excitedly while waving her hands. Harold skillfully stop his cart behind the carriage.
Right as soon as the lumberjack's cart stopped, the red haired girl jump out of cart fromt seat and hug the so called uncle.
"Brat-" the olderman reply tenderly, a soft chuckling come out of his mouth while ruffling mary's head.
"My hair-!" the girl shouted as she growled.
"'You make the people at home worried you know-" the man look at his niece disapprovingly. he nearly had heart attack when he heard Mary sneak out lost for 6 days with only note thats she is gone to starlight empire.
The more shocking is that the girl sudden calling from a no name village and request to be picked up after telling them that she nearly died. as if her stubborn daring act of run away and her dangerous encounter just a random prank.
"I know-" the girl's look away.
The uncle sighed before opening the carriage door "Hop in, at least now you finally decide to go home and safe. don't do these kind of things again, ok?"
"ok, uncle-" the girl reply quietly.
Harold who just look the conversation on sidelines, looks like everything resolved in peace. good for the girl, she truly is a handful fellow.
The olderman then close the carriage door. before he turn facing harold.
"Thank you for keeping my niece safe. here few silvers as thanks" the man said as he throw a bundle of leather pouch to Harold. "May we meet again if the fate allow" he said as he walk away from jared and entering the carriage.
The carriage driver then start reign the carriage horse and move away to the next journey.
"That guy sure is stuffy, didn't even bother to introduce himself to you, huh"
A boy voice echoed from nearby tree's branch near Harold's lumbers cart.
Harold look up, and can't help but grin at the familiar face.
"Welcome back, Karl"